The first reason why animal testing should be allowed is because this type of testing has enabled scientists to discover many cures and treatments for patients. For example, scientists were able to put an end to the polio disease due to 100 years of medical research on animals. The drug, originally affecting 350,000 cases in 1988 has led to only 27 cases in 2016, all due to a curing treatment found from testing vaccines on animals. Supporters argue that many life-saving treatments have all been developed due to animal testing. Director of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center’s animal research facility, Chris Abee, once stated that “we wouldn’t have a vaccine for hepatitis B without chimpanzees,” a disease that kills thousands of Americans annually. Without testing on chimpanzees, thousands of Americans would still be killed from this disease annually, but now, with the newfound cure, scientists have been able to create an immunization to this disease. Scientists have been able to discover treatments for rabies, feline leukemia, distemper and more, all animal diseases.
This shows that not only has animal testing led to cures for human diseases, it has also been used to find treatments for animals. The second reason why animal testing should be allowed is because there is no other method to test products that allows scientists to investigate its effects other than another living organism, an animal. The most common animals used for testing are rodents. More than 100 million rats and mice are used for animal testing each year in the U.S because these animals share 98% of their genetics with humans.
It is vital for scientists to complete their research on animals that are alike humans because test results will be nearly as accurate as testing on another human being. Scientists against animal testing have been suggesting alternative methods such as computer models and petri dishes for years, but there is no scientific research to prove that these methods can be used to find the same cures as testing on animals has done. Although computer models can help supplement data for an experiment and petri dishes can be a trustworthy example, they still can’t replace an entire living animal organism. When testing a new drug, scientists must closely evaluate its side effects it has on the animal, observe its interrelated processes in different organs, and also study the animals’ blood pressure at the same time. Experimenting on computer models or studying petri dishes does not allow scientists to look into all these factor at the same time, and these methods are unable to stimulate processes occuring in complex parts of the body precisely and accurately. Many people might disagree with me, and say that animal testing should be banned because humans don’t have the right to hurt animals or test on them; this is incorrect.
Unless everyone in the PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of animals, are strictly vegetarian, they are making an unfair statement. Scientists are testing on animals for a completely good use, only to improve medicine and discover new treatments. People nowadays, excluding vegetarians, eat meat almost every single day. There is no point protesting to stop using animals if you are going to end up eating the animals researchers aren’t using.
People want to stop animal testing because they believe humans aren’t superior to animals in any way, which is completely biased. The main reason people are protesting against animal testing because they believe scientists are killing a plethora of animals for research. Yet people in the United States alone are eating more than 9 billion chickens and 150 million farm animals annually, while the use of animals for testing only adds up to not more than 26 million. Every year, Americans are eating more than 1,800 times the amount of pigs used in animal research and more than 340 chickens for every tested animal. Compared to the number of animals that are raised to be slaughtered and end up on your dinner plate, animals used for research are only a miniscule portion. This is a small price scientists pay for the extravagant knowledge they learn in return.
In addition, if people don’t want scientists to test on animals, do they want scientists to perform all their medical research on humans themselves? I don’t think anyone in their right mind would happily volunteer themselves as a test subject to replace animals. They’d be fed dozens of drugs with completely unknown side effects every day, the chance of death being up to 99%. People should stop protesting animal testing without knowing the real danger of what the unknown drugs could do if not being successfully tested.
